


Home is You

by aryaologys



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arya goes to Storms End, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gendrya - Freeform, Gendrya baby, If this don’t happen imma Kermit, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-02 13:46:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18812137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryaologys/pseuds/aryaologys
Summary: Arya left her home so young, she doesn’t even consider it home at all. All she knows is that she can’t go back to Winterfell, that’s not her place anymore. She doesn’t want to stay in King’s Landing, it belongs to her sister and her new husband now.There’s a sea she can travel but that’s even further from what home could be. So she goes where the ache in her chest leads her.For once, she listens to it.





	Home is You

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first ao3 fic lmaoooo we out here

 

 

 

Storm’s End isn’t much to gape over, Arya thinks. It’s her first thought as she rides her steed up the hill and gets her first glimpse at it. For being the most formidable castle built during the Age of Heroes, it just looks like another ugly old keep. The pale stone might be the only pretty thing about it. Then again, most things that were renowned were rarely pretty. She thought of herself, renowned slayer of the Night King, and stood corrected. _He called me beautiful though—_ She takes a sharp intake of breath. Her eyes stay trained on the ugly keep in front of her before she flutters them close for a moment, breathing in the sea air that the wind pushes her way. Arya can hear the waves raging from ShipBreaker Bay and supposes that if it can withstand those waves with little wear to show for it, it’s suitable for someone just as resilient. Someone like Gendry. 

 

Her eyes shoot back open. 

 

That thought keeps her in place. She doesn’t make a move to inch her horse forward.  _This is a bad idea,_ she thinks to herself,  _a stupid, stupid idea._ She has half the mind to turn back around and forget this whole self-discovery mission she let her sister convince her into. But gods  _forbid_ she dismiss the advice of the new Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, no matter how much love Sansa bore her, Arya knew her sister liked being right most of all. Surely Jon would understand her need for not following through, right? He’d let her leave anywhere, give her a royal ship if she wanted even and money for her travels . . . but his wife would no doubt convince him otherwise. Sansa had him wrapped around her finger, not that it was a bad thing of course, but it did explain the ridiculous ‘kingly’ outfit Jon was wearing when Arya left. 

 

Those two are _so_ unrealistically fond of each other, it had been a long time coming in all honesty. Arya remembered the stares they had shared once Jon returned from Dragonstone. Stares that were only furthered by Bran’s confession of Jon being their cousin rather than their brother. The times they were both conveniently out of sight during the day. And Arya will never forget hearing the sobs coming from Sansa’s chambers in Winterfell before Jon left to Kings Landing. Arya had never heard her sister cry that way. Sansa had been so _heartbroken_ to hear Jon might’ve had to wed the dragon queen to make an alliance the lords of the realm would approve of. 

 

But Daenerys fell from the dragon when it was pierced with one of the arrows of Cersei’s scorpions and just like that, the war ended and now Arya’s sister was wearing a crown on her head and had someone brave, gentle and strong by her side, just like their father had promised she’d one day have. 

 

Everything was okay now. There was no more danger. Arya only left because she was absolutely sure no harm would come to Westeros new rulers.

 

But Jon and Sansa’s constant and unwavering show of affection for one another made Arya all the more eager to take her sisters advice, especially because it meant she’d leave King’s Landing. No matter how happy she was for them, there was a hole in Arya’s chest that needed to be mended before she could _truly_ witness their love and not feel envious. 

 

Reminded of that ache in her chest, she moves her horse forward. She’s stopped by some guards, ( and since Sansa had made it her ultimate duty to make sure she at least had some new, nice embroidered tunics and riding boots ) but they let her pass. 

 

She lets the stableboy take her steed and she looks around for moment, realizing she doesn’t know where to go next. _Where would the new lord be?_  A thought hits her, a fond one. She grabs the boy’s arm before he can leave, his eyes wideneding. 

 

“Sorry,” She apologizes, dropping her hand.

 

“No worries, milady,” The young boy replies.

 

Her nose scrunches at the title but she continues to ask, “Can you tell me where the forge is?”

 

* * *

 

 

 

No surprise, Arya finds him there. He’s got his tunic unlaced at the top while he’s beating down on some heated sword, glowing from being in the fire not too long ago. He’s sweating from the forge fires, cheek covered in soot. It’s comical to her, how he can still smith, how he still wants to smith even when he’s the lord paramount of the damned Stormlands. But that’s not Gendry. Gendry is the boy who defended her all those years ago. Who kept her secret when he didn’t have to. Who she loved and would’ve followed to the end of the world. She looks at his face now; still brutish and stubborn looking as ever.  _No,_ she tells herself,  _that’s who I love. That’s who I will follow to the end of the world._

 

 _This is it,_ Arya says to herself,  _if you wanna leave now and forget him forever, if you truly want to let him go . .. you turn away right  now._ She could let him marry a proper, pretty  lady, let him have an easy life, have some pretty children with that proper lady. She would be nothing more than a memory to him, distant and fleeting. He would become happy in his new life and forget Arya Stark ever meant a thing to him. If she turned away right now all of that would happen and both of them might be better for it.  ~~~~

But that ache in her chest defies any rational thing she would’ve chose. Arya knows what will happen if she’ll stay. She told him that wasn’t her, she was no proper lady, she wasn’t Sansa, she doesn’t have the ability to just love someone so raw and real like she loves Jon . . at least Arya doesn’t _know_ if she does and she’s scared to be right. 

 

 

 “You know,” Arya speaks, deciding to make herself known, against every voice telling her not to. “Lords actually hire smiths to do the weapon making.” 

 

Gendry nearly drops the sword he was working on. He looks up, straight at her, and pales like he’s seen a ghost. Maybe he has. Maybe she’s so dead to him after the last time they spoke that she is nothing more than some phantom to him. 

 

But then he gains color. And his eyes, navy and blue as the sea that crashes it’s waves into the keep nearby, widen the same way they did that night he proposed to her. 

 

“ _A_ - _Arya_?” He stammers, walking toward her. 

 

“No stupid,” She plays off her joy at the awe she hears in his voice. “Yes, who else? Arya. _Me_.” 

 

Gendry chuckles breathlessly. “What are you . . .” He looks around, confused for a moment but still happy. “Why did you—how—”

 

“Are you gonna pick a question to ask me or continue stammering like an idiot?”

 

He clamps his mouth shut. Arya crosses her arms over her chest. He just stays staring at her, so intensely it has her shifting from one foot to the other. 

 

“I reckon you came all this way just to insult me, huh?” Gendry finally speaks. 

 

Arya looks down at her boots. They were really nice. Sansa was right, _annoyingly_ _so_. “Not _just_ to insult you . . .” She murmurs. 

 

“I heard about your sister and your–err, cousin. Everyone’s happy it’s them.”

 

”Yeah,” Arya says. “They really love each other.”

 

”I missed the wedding,” Gendry tells her. “I sent some gifts though, my steward picked them, I’m not too good with wedding presents.” He cuts himself off. “I learned how to use a fork though. Pretty good at that.” 

 

“I’m sure,” She smiles genuinely. 

 

“I heard it was nice,” He continues. “They call your sister Good Queen Sansa because she gave the smallfolk food from the feast.”  

 

“Yes . . . why weren’t you there? You sent an envoy to represent your house but _you_ didn’t show.” Arya questions, almost accusatory.

 

“I didn’t, uh,” Gendry clears his throat. He obviously struggles to find the words. “I didn’t know if–if—”

 

“Didn’t know if _what_?” Arya urges. 

 

“. . If you wanted to see me.”

 

His answer caught her off guard. She frowns up at him, mustering up as much confusion as she can. She knows why. She just really wants to hear what he feels, what he felt, what he still might feel. 

 

“What?” She questions. “Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

 

Gendry sighs, tilting his head at her. “Arya.”

 

Arya raises a brow. “What?”

 

“Well for starters, you rejecting my proposal was one of the reasons,” He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “And maybe telling you that I love you was too much but—I wanted to save what little pride you left me with?”

 

Arya rolls her eyes. “I couldn’t wound your pride.”

 

“You have no idea,” Gendry says. “Seeing you might’ve . . . it was just better I didn’t go.” 

 

Arya looks down again. “I wish you did.”

 

He stills. “What?”

 

She lifts her head to look up at him, straight in the eye, so he has no doubt in her words. “I said I wish you did go,” Arya tells him conversationally. “As the queen’s sister it was rude to refuse to dance with a bunch of dumb lordlings . . .” 

 

A muscle in Gendry’s jaw ticks. “Did you?”

 

“I did,” She confirms, enjoying the way his eyes seem to flare at her words. 

 

He turns his back to her. “And?”

 

”I would’ve preferred dancing with just _one_ dumb lord.” She says. 

 

Gendry glances over his shoulder, she can see the faintest smile on him. “Anything else?” 

 

“Sansa made me wear a dress,” Arya grumbles for the drama. “She said I couldn’t wear _trousers_ to her wedding . . . she even made her ladies put flowers in my hair, I looked _ridiculous_ , you would’ve laughed.” 

 

“I bet you looked beautiful,” Gendry says softly, turning back to face her again. “Like a proper little lady.”

 

Arya’s lip form a line. “That’s not—”

  

”You,” Gendry finishes for her. “I know.”

  

A silence falls over them again. 

 

“Why are you here, Arya?” 

 

“I wanted to visit.”

 

“Liar.”

 

“I’m not lying,” She argues. “I wanted to see Storm’s End.”

  

“Even more horseshit.”

 

Arya scowls, “That’s no way to speak to the Queens sist—”

 

” _Arya_ ,” Gendry says firmer. His eyes are serious, so blue, it’s all she can see. 

  

She had to tell him. Sansa said it was better to tell the man you cared for him directly rather than make him guess and wait for him to say his part. ‘ _Men_ _are_ _stupid_ ,’ Sansa has said without room for any other opinion. Arya had asked ‘ _Even_ _Jon?’_ And Sansa smiled her pretty smile before fondly saying, ‘ _Especially_ _Jon_.’ 

 

“I didn’t want to stay in King’s Landing,” 

 

“Why not?” 

  

“Because no matter how much it’s Sansa and Jon’s home now, it’s still the place that ruined everything for my family,” Arya admits. “It’s where my father . . . I _hate_ that place.”

  

It’s the truth. Jon and Sansa could rebuild that entire keep in their image, turn it into a golden haven, fill it with babies that have Sansa’s hair and Jon’s eyes, wiped clean of all the misfortunes that dreaded keep has seen but it still fills Arya with sadness. 

 

”What about Winterfell then?” Gendry keeps on persisting. He wants the real answer. “Why not go back home to your brother and his wife?” 

 

“Bran and Meera don’t need me.” She shakes her head. “And I can’t go there either. I’m never stepping foot in there again and it scares me and makes me sad but—that’s not my home.”

 

It isnt. Winterfell was her home when she had Rickon to chase after. When she would shoot arrows and have her father watch her from the balcony. When she’d have Robb and Theon to throw snowballs at. When she’d escape Septa Mordane’s lessons and run away from her mothers pleas to put on a clean dress and brush her hair. Winterfell was home only because the people she loved were there. Now, it was Bran’s home, his turn to make it something worth living in again. 

 

”Of course it is,” Gendry says softly. “It’s Winterfell, you were born there. It’s enough reason for me to love it even.”

 

 

”I was. I love it, too,” Arya meets his eyes, her grey irises icy. “But it hasn’t been my _home_ for a long time.” 

 

 

“So what then?” Gendry walks closer to her then. “Where is home?”

 

 

The closer he gets the more she has to tilt her head up to him. “You really are stupid.” 

 

 

Gendry smiles, “Arya,” He says, almost inaudible. “You came here for a reason. You could’ve gone anywhere. But you came here.”

 

 

Arya feels her eyes burn with the familiar sting of tears. “I only told you no,” She begins, breathing shakily. “Because I had to kill Cersei, and I didn’t know if I would survive it. I couldn’t give you an answer I had no right in giving.”

 

 

Gendry’s expression turns into the most soft one she’s seen. But she has since it. Not since the night before the Battle in Winterfell has he looked at her so adoringly. He cups her face, Arya not caring the slightest that his hands are soot covered, they’re warm. Gendry is always warm. He’s warm enough to warm her cold hands. 

  

“Are you saying—”

  

”You said you don’t know how to be a lord,” Arya cut off. “Well, I don’t know how to be a wife. I never—that’s not me . . but it could be. I mean, I could _try_.” 

 

Before she knows it, Gendry kisses her. She’s up on her tip-toes again and craning her neck up just to meet his lips. That warmth from his hands spreads to every inch of her. The ache that had been pestering her since Sansa and Jon’s wedding lifted. He kisses her and kisses her and Arya suddenly remembers what Beric told her the night of the battle in her old home: _live_. This was life, Gendry was life, flesh and blood and pure life. Every inch of him was a life worth living for. And isn’t that all Arya has strived for? At the end of the day, when her enemies were buried and she had the satisfaction of helping them do so, there had to be more than just killing. The dead were dead and she wouldn’t be. She wasn’t. She was here, she lived. Gendry’s breath fans her face and she can feel his smile through their kiss. 

 

 

“If you think marrying you means you can start telling me what to do,” Arya says, a little breathless from their kissing. “And if I wish to do something that isn’t what a _lady_ of _Storm’s_ _End_ should be doing . . . I’m going to do it.” 

  

“As m’lady commands,” Gendry chuckles, resting his forehead on hers. 

  

“Don’t call me that either, stupid. At least not in front of people.” 

 

“As you wish then,” He gently tilts her head up with his large hands, kissing her again. “Lady Baratheon.” 

 

“That’s somehow _worse_ ,” She hits him. He laughs. “Gendry?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

”Love you, too.” 

 

Before she can get overwhelmed by the way he looks at her then and there, she closes the gap between them, and kisses him some more. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

A decade of peace in the Seven Kingdoms seems almost surreal. For most it’s hard to imagine a life where trouble was ever a thing for them. But under King Jon and Queen Sansa, there is nothing but peace—in the ten years that pass, Arya becomes an aunt to six little royal children, which fills her with overwhelming joy because she knew how badly Sansa wanted to vanquish the empty halls of that damned Red Keep and fill it with the children from her dreams. Arya hears each time Sansa gives birth the bells of King’s Landing ring from dawn till dusk, the same way Winterfell had when Sansa had been born. Soon, Arya and her husband will be fostering their nephew, the crown prince Eddard. Everyone has nothing but good things to say about Jon and Sansa’s eldest child, and it’s all genuine, not in any way someone like Joffrey might’ve made people believe him to be. Arya _knows_ Sansa beams like the sun at the good things said for her son; she always did have the makings to birth future kings, good rulers. 

  

Arya however, does remember a life where trouble was a thing for them. She’s got scars littered on her body to remind her if she ever gets too comfortable in this peaceful reality and forgets. 

 

Gendry is there though. As always. He’s there to hold her when night terrors of a reality where she hadn’t killed the Night King occurs. Where the dragon queen never fell and burned Kings Landing and all it’s inhabitants to ash. Gendry is there to remind her that her nightmares are nothing of their baby reality. Reality is them, the both of them together, after everything. Reality is Nymeria who came back to her and roams the Kingswood with her pack. Reality is Jon and Sansa and their brood and the little boys Meera and Bran raise in Winterfell with ice in their blood and laughter in their eyes. 

 

And once Arya’s reminded, she’s better. 

 

In the sixth year of peace, she sees longing in Gendry’s eyes when Jon and Sansa visit Storm’s End. Arya notices how Gendry watches Jon sit on the grass with his three daughter’s attaching daisies in his hair, squealing excitedly. Arya sees the longing deepen when Jon rubs Sansa’s pregnant stomach and speaks to it as if it’ll understand. 

 

Gendry wants children. She _knows_ that. The stormlords wonder when their liege lord is to be given an heir. Arya makes a jest one night about Gendry maybe going to get a bastard on some other highborn girl for his heir and that jest had him not speaking to her for an entire week. 

 

She’s a good lady of Storm’s End. She knows how to manage a household. She gets along with their lords. She goes riding with the more bolder ladies and spends her day training with Finn, the stableboy who wants to learn to fight. She’s fine. Being a mother isn’t in her list of duties. Gendry never vocally says what he wants. But he doesn’t have to. They’ve been married far too long for that. 

  

“I think Gendry wants children,” Arya blurts out to Sansa on their trip to Kings Landing for Sansa and Jon’s youngest christening. 

 

Sansa holds the newly christened Lyanna in her arms as they sit in the Queen’s solar. The dark-haired babe that has a likeness to her eldest brother is babbling about in her mothers arms, trying to grab the jewels on Sansa’s gown. Princess Lyanna Targaryen is cherubic, dolllike and incredibly chubby, so beautiful just like everything Arya’s sister makes but it’s almost unfair at this point. But Arya knows better than to think _Sansa_ could ever make an ugly child.

 

“You think?” Sansa questions. 

 

“Yes, that’s what I said,” Arya snaps. 

 

“Did he tell you so?”

 

“Not vocally,” She admits. “He didn’t have to.” 

 

Lyanna smiles a gummy smile at her aunt, her cerulean eyes so intense for a baby that young. Arya grabs her baby hand and taps it softly. She’s granted a fond coo.

 

“One won’t hurt,” Sansa reasons. 

 

Arya frowns, “I thought it always hurts.” 

 

“I mean,” Her sister sighs. “One child would not be such a horrible thing, would it?”

 

”I’m not a maternal type,” Arya protests. 

 

Sansa gives her a look. “You said you were not the marriage type either. Now look, almost a decade married.” 

 

Arya bites her lip, unsure. 

 

“Gendry loves you, Arya,” Sansa says a little more softly, using that voice she reserves for only her sister. “If you don’t want a child then you know he will not ask that of you.”

 

“But Storm’s End needs an _heir_.”

 

“Then have a child.” 

 

“What if I am no good at it?”

 

”Oh Arya,” Sansa chuckles fondly. Lyanna squirms in her mothers arms and Sansa ends up cradling her, rocking back and forth. “No one is ever good at it at first. You learn as you go.” Her eyes fall to her baby daughter. “You cannot imagine how dearly I wished mother were here to help me . . . I need it sometimes.”

 

Arya knows if anyone of their remaining siblings still thinks of Catelyn constantly, it’s Sansa. Everything Arya’s sister is had been shadowed from their mother. Arya can see their mother in Sansa’s demeanor sometimes, even if it’s very faint; there’s a similarity in the their walk, speech, manners, and an extreme contrast in the way they see Jon, if that wasn’t obvious enough. 

 

But Arya knows how dearly Sansa wished their mother was here, how she wishes she could've doted upon Sansa’s brood the way everyone in the realm does. 

 

“You don't need help,” Arya says. “You’re the strongest person I know.”

 

Sansa gives her a look that speaks louder than words. “We both know you beat me by a long list.”

 

“You’re strong where it matters,” Arya rebukes lightly. “I told you I never could’ve survived what you did.” 

 

“I’m glad we’ll  never know,” Sansa says before she gets a serious look in her eyes. “But tell me something, Arya. Are you happy, happy with Gendry?” 

 

Arya doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.” She even nods for good measure. “I don’t really know how happy I used to be, you know, before—”

 

”Neither do I, sometimes,” Sansa admits, her pretty face slightly forlorn. “It’s hard for me to remember all we had. Why we lost it. What we did to deserve it.”

 

”Nothing, we did nothing,” Arya says fiercely. “No one, deserves what happened to us.”

 

“Jon says the same,” Sansa’s husband always makes her eyes shine a bit bluer. She then looks down at her baby daughter, “You know, Arya,” She begins softly. “I’ve never been more happy than I am now. Not even as a girl. . . not even when Robb and Rickon and mother and father were here.” She pauses. “But it took a long time for me to get here. For Jon and I and our children.” 

 

“I’m happy for you,” Arya says. “Both of you.”

 

Sansa holds her hand. “I had made sure I was truly happy, on my own, Jon as well, before we could become parents. There will always be scars. They will never fade, that is true. If you’re scared I am too, we’ve been through way too much to not be scared sometimes.” 

 

”So that’s why you ask if I’m happy?”

 

Her sister nods. “It’s a heavy burden to give a child, to depend on them for your happiness, it should not be so.” 

 

“I get that.” Arya understands. 

 

“I love my children yes, I love my role as their mother, I love them so much it scares me,” Sansa says. “But I needed to get to the point where it wasn’t necessary for me to have children to be content, to feel I had a home.” 

 

Lyanna babbles loudly, grabbing their attention. At the doorway Jon appears, smiling at his daughter, reaching out for her. Sansa whispers excitedly to the baby which makes the little princess kick her chubby legs the closer that Jon gets. Finally he gets her, blowing into her neck and making her giggle wildly. Sansa stands, grabbing her, muttering about how Jon was messing up her hair to which he just retorts how it was already messy. 

 

Arya kisses Lyanna’s baby hand before she slips out quiet as ever, leaving the family to themselves.  

 

 

* * *

 

 

A year after the tenth anniversary of Jon and Sansa’s reign, Arya stops taking moontea for the first time. Maybe it’s because of that talk Sansa and she had, maybe it’s because Storm’s End finally feels like home? Maybe it’s because she realizes home is not a place but a person rather . . . whatever the true reason, she doesn’t know the moment she decided to stop having the Maester make it for her. She doesn’t tell Gendry, though she thinks he can guess well enough because he might not taste the tansy on her lips anymore like he used to. Any coupling they have after that is little more passionate, each fear she has is silenced by the grip Gendry has on her thigh, each doubt is kissed away until Arya is certain it’s entirely what she wants.

 

The whole time Arya is pregnant, she prays that it isn’t a girl. She’d hate for the gods to repay her for the hell she gave her mother when she was younger. Gendry says he doesn’t mind what it’ll be, his smile is a little more brighter these days that she believes him. 

 

On the stormiest day since she’s lived in Storm’s End, she gives birth to a boy. Much to her relief, a health boy, he comes into the world screaming as he was born into a battle only he knew of. Tufts of Baratheon black hair litter his small head. Arya almost laughs at how much Gendry can’t stop beaming the entire time the Maester wipes the babe clean.

 

She rolls her eyes fondly when her husband is handed their son and whispers, “Nice to meet you my boy,” Gendry lets out a shaky breath. 

 

Gendry is such a brute it surprises her how gentle he can look, holding a newborn babe in his large arms. They name him Steffon—a name without a legacy or a hero to live up to. Their world has enough of them already. 

 

“Arya,” Gendry calls out softly. “He’s beautiful.”

 

“Of course you’d say that,” Arya smiles a tired smile. “He’s yours.” 

 

“Yours, too,” Gendry grins. “Ours.” 

 

“Give him here,” Arya says when she hears her sons little baby sounds. “He’s hungry.” 

 

When Arya finally holds him in her arms, she gets a glimpse of his eyes; Stark grey. It makes her think of her father for the first time in years. His eyes were the same. Arya feels her throat tighten with emotion. She remembers what he told her all those years ago, “ _When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”_ She had once believed Ned Stark had it all wrong. She thought she was the lone wolf. 

 

But she looks down at her son, letting him wrap his hand around her finger, and has to believe her father knew what he was saying when he told her that. 

 

The pack survives. 

 

“He is beautiful . . .” Arya finds herself saying, tears in her eyes. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” 

 

Gendry chuckles, “Told you.” 

 

“Shut up,” She snips playfully. 

 

 _Yeah_ , Arya thinks as she feels Gendry slide beside her in the bed and kiss her forehead _the pack will survive._

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ??? idk but mfff uhhhh gendrya is endgame!! if there’s typos IDK HA


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